Man and Beast
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: Clary drags Jace on a date to Central Park Zoo. Autumn!TMI. Post-COG, pre-COFA.


_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own The Mortal Instruments. Or the movie Madagascar. CLACE FLUFF DIS IS GRANNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDD.**

Jace glanced at his cellphone and frowned. It was opened to his text messages, and particularly the ones from Clary. The two of them were constantly at their phones and texting for communicating, seeing as the rest of the Shadowhunters around them would get particularly annoyed with the fact that all they did was talk via calling each other. So they switched to texting.

Still, Jace didn't see how it was easier. At least with calling, he was able to distinguish what she meant to really tell him when she spoke to him. But with the text messages, especially the one he was rereading for the fourteenth time in the last twenty minutes that said 'Meet me at Central Park by the southeast entrance. and you're 17 now.', with the tiny little :) at the end, it was cryptic. And he wondered deeply why he had suddenly aged a year.

He knew she was smart enough to not have an emergency on her hands and send only for him to help. He also knew she was emotional and secretive enough to do that exact thing. So there was gear under his black jeans and dark green T-shirt. He was also wearing a jacket with the collar turned up, and chrome sneakers. He had a lot of fashion sense, like his sister and unlike Alec, who could stand to check up on what teenagers wear and not sixty-five-year-old grandparents.

Jace took the N train and walked four blocks to 64th Street. The sounds of New York City were bouncing around loudly around him, filling his ears with the honking of taxis, the yells of street vendors, the ringing of cellphones of the hurrying pedestrians, and more. Yet he was completely and utterly calm.

He caught sight of Clary at the entrance. Her red hair was out around her shoulders, covering a green sweater and a black scarf. She was also wearing a little black jacket and long, slimming jeans. Jace found his throat rough as he cleared it and came up to her, not startling her as much as he would have liked. Shadowhunter training had made her entirely too wary of his presence.

"Guess who," he said.

"Yeah, I can guess," Clary said, smiling. She seemed awfully bright this morning, and Jace couldn't help but wonder why. He saw an evil glint in her eye, and raised an eyebrow, realizing that it was probably because she had so easily gotten him to come to the Park.

"And may I ask what the point of meeting here is for? We have a training session in just two hours. Or could you not keep yourself away from me?" Jace said, raising the other eyebrow.

"I can explain," Clary said.

"You better be able to. Unless I'm mistaken, Clarissa, which rarely, if ever, happens, we're standing near the entrance to the Central Park Zoo." Jace cleared his throat when he saw her smile mischievously. "And I also have the feeling that is what is going to be explained."

"We're going in. I'm buying tickets; we're going on an official date." Clary quickly said as he instantly started to shake his head, "Come on. This is what normal couples do, okay, Jace?"

"It's not what we do, Clary. If you haven't taken care to notice, we're not a normal couple. There's an entire long list of reasons devoted to why we're not normal," Jace said.

Clary frowned at him. "That doesn't mean we can't do normal things. Jace, let's face it. I am very tired of training. Literally. My muscles are so sore I could fall asleep at this very moment. But I have been SO stuck in your world for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, and yes, I know that things will never be the same for me now"—for Jace was about to interrupt, she was sure, about this very thing—"but can't we indulge a little in the mundane world? It isn't nearly as _mundane_ as you would think." She smirked at the end of this, thinking proudly of her little joke.

Jace cocked his head. "Is this some strange way of getting out of Shadowhunter training today?"

"Or maybe it's an attempt at having, I don't know, _fun_," Clary said, raising an eyebrow and making Jace scoff. That scoff lost him. She smiled brilliantly, the whites of her teeth showing through her smile, as she grabbed his hand and dragged him to the gates. He walked on reluctantly, being a complete prick by shuffling his feet and losing all control of his body. She ended up scooping him up in her arms and saying, "You're acting like a real kid, Jace. Or is this a weird form of Shadowhunter exercise, dragging you everywhere?"'

Jace nodded to himself, a slightly surprised frown on his face. "Now, why didn't I think of that? But no, actually, I was just trying to make this as evident to you as possible that I am not looking forward to this daytrip."

"Thanks for the warning. Now here's mine:" She leaned in close, her breath gently making his hair dance, her lips tickling his ear. "This won't be the last time this happens."

"Fair warning, then," Jace said, and then he stood completely up, as straight as a rod and as completely serious as a funeral-attendee. He took Clary's hand and they walked to the entrance. Somehow, with the use of a couple of clever Glamours, they were able to get through, despite how neither of them were allowed, for neither were seventeen.

Jace watched the entire zoo with a strange glint in his eye. Having never been in a zoo before, or having seen any of these animals in real life, it was an interesting experience being dragged around by Clary, who he learned had taken many trips here as a child with her mother, Luke, and Simon. She was like a little child, with sweet, innocent want and demands as she took him from exhibit to exhibit. The seals were slick and the sea lions long and dark. Clary laughed at the sounds of the birds and the calmness of the monkeys, who seemed to not notice the intrusion of the humans in their lives at all.

"They're nothing like they are in that 'Madagascar' movie," Clary said, laughing behind her hand.

"What?" Jace wondered, and Clary remembered again just how pop-culture illiterate Jace was.

She shrugged and said, "Never mind."

Jace decided not to press the matter, probably because he knew it would turn out to be a much longer winded explanation than he wanted at all. So he didn't say anything but held Clary's small white hand tightly as she raced the two of them to the lions' exhibit. The large cats roamed around their grassy exhibit, watching the public with an almost bored eye.

"You remind me of a lion," Clary said to Jace. "You're both gold and leaders, the hunters. Not the prey. And annoyed and higher over the rest of the population."

Jace's throat tightened. He often felt more like the prey lately, rather than the hunter. The hunter was always two steps ahead of the prey, and the hunter always won. But the prey was weak and scrambling. After all that had gone down in Idris, he decided that his hunter status had been traded, against his will, for the prey.

"Fine. But my mane is far more majestic than his," Jace said.

"Fine," Clary said complacently. She sighed, thinking of the fine brown-orange lines she could use with a freshly sharpened coloring pencil to use on making a long lion's mane. She always used gold or black for Jace's hair. It was quite different in the coloring than in the lion's case.

There were soon all animals seen. Snakes and a red panda and so many different colored birds. Jace watched all these with interest, commenting on occasion on how a Victoria crowned pigeon had been a messenger bird for the Shadowhunters during World War II. Most of what he knew of the rain forest birds, Clary gathered after a long time of listening to him smile a little and recall several random facts about the colorful birds, was from Hodge, and what he had taught the Lightwood children about the wild animals.

Once they were out of the birds' habits, Clary let out a heavy sigh. Thank goodness there had been no sign of any falcons. She would have felt crushed if he had found one and brought up old childhood memories to torture himself with.

They saw the two polar bears, the lemurs, and monkeys, an anteater, and toads and fruit bats. Most of the time it was chilly, and the wind swept their hair back, making Clary cock her head as if she was a model during a photo shoot. She laughed at the strange look on Jace's face. Clearly, he had never seen her do that before then.

For the most part, though, Clary didn't find herself looking at the animals. She had already seen them a dozen times from the top of Luke's shoulders, and from the pictures on Simon's little childish camera, which he had always taken with him. Her green eyes were instead stuck completely on Jace, observing every last movement that he made. Her eyes were trained to pay attention to detail, especially on such a fine man. She couldn't help it. He was far more interesting than a goose in the water.

But what also fascinated her was the fact that he had lived here for so long and had _never seen this_. It was almost with an innocent wonder that he observed all the animals, the passersby, the exhibits, even the large bell that was rung by a pair of monkeys. He was taken out of his world and stuck into another one, one that was far closer than he had ever thought. And she was watching his firsts that she had had at the age of seven. He was getting his first exploration of the Central Park Zoo. So her eyes continued to flicker over to him, not only to catch the sun's glimmer off his eyelashes or his especially sharp cheekbones, but also to see that he was, hopefully, enjoying himself.

Finally they were sitting in front of the penguin exhibit, both of their pairs of hands wrapped around flavored coffee. It calmed them and warmed them in the cold, which was sweeping in golden and scarlet and orange leaves from the trees, dashing them down into the water of the penguins.

"This has got to be their kind of weather, hmm?" Jace said, nodding to the animals as they waddled about. He sipped his coffee and looked to Clary for a reaction.

"I suppose," Clary said. Her body was relaxing a bit. They had been here for a long time; it was quite late in the afternoon now, with the sun slowly starting to descend in the white sky. Already, things were turning grayer and grayer, and it wouldn't be long before the lights were turned on and the zoo closed.

"So what do they do in the summer, when it's warm out?" Jace wanted to know.

"Keep swimming in the cold water? I don't know," Clary said, laughing a little. She shook her head and sipped her coffee. She looked over the lid at Jace and asked him, "So?"

"So what? There should be a question attached to that," Jace said, unabated.

"What'd you think?"

Jace pressed his lips into a fine line and didn't say much. He looked away. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to think. Or say, for that matter.

"Did you like anything or did you put up with everything for my sake?" Perhaps different phrasing would help.

"The birds were all right. All bright and weird colored. Much better than in the book. The mountain lion was like a house cat, hiding in the shadows. And can I be the first to say that that hippo was absolutely huge," Jace said, and this made Clary laugh. Her laugh rang, and it upturned a corner of his mouth.

"I didn't ruin your day, then?" Clary said, raising an eyebrow.

Jace stared at her for a moment, his smile gone, his face completely serious. His eyes followed her every move. "There is no way in the world you could ruin any of my days. As long as there are no more deaths or wars caused as a result of a ruined day, at least."

Clary couldn't tell if he was teasing or not. She instead wrapped her hand around his and said, "Take me home before my mom starts frantically calling me, asking me when I'm getting home?"

"I think I can manage that," he said, and he kissed her hand, pressing his lips firmly against her skin before meeting her eyes and, not saying a single word, acknowledged to her that he had, indeed, had a good time.

Mostly because the entire time he had been in her presence.

**Bbies. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
